I wanted to write this post to help you understand all that you need to know on shutter speed basics. So let's start with the most basic thing of all, what is shutter speed?
Shutter speed is just the speed at which your camera takes an image. Inside your camera, there is a shutter. Every time you take a shot, the shutter opens and then closes. Upon opening, light shines onto the sensor, the sensor captures the image, then the shutter closes. Faster shutter speeds will basically freeze the movement. Longer shutter speeds come in handy when there is a limited amount of light. If the shutter opens and closes rapidly, a very small amount of light will be able to enter the camera. Your pictures could turn out under exposed depending on how much light you are working with. You won't have this problem on a bright and sunny day for example if your shutter speed is something like 1/1000 of a second or 2/1000 of a second. This issue more commonly occurs indoors.
Imagine you are taking a shot of a sunset. If you select a very quick shutter speed, your image will be dark. In this kind of circumstance you would slow down the shutter speed. It might be a few seconds long. This depends on the lighting and also on the aperture value you have picked. By doing this, you will no longer have the problem of your photos being under exposed and too dark, but this leads to another problem; you will need to use a tripod to keep the camera still. If you hand shakes even a tiny amount while you are taking the photo, or the subject moves, your picture will be blurry. Alternatively you can place the camera somewhere where it will be completely still.
When you have an abundance of light, is it still possible to produce any nice effects by slowing the shutter speed down?
Of course this is possible! An example is when you take a picture of moving water, such as a river or a waterfall. This will create a silky, dreamy effect on the photo of the water. You would have to change your aperture to compensate for the abundance of light hitting the sensor. Some effects require us to change the aperture so much that the shutter speed can be as slow as several minutes! This may be an aperture number of about F18 or F22. This means that the aperture size will shrink so that there is less light coming in. It could still be over exposed and you might need to use a filter to block out some of the sunlight.
This technique can also be used if you are standing on a bridge in the city to take shots of roads with vehicles on, to make the vehicles disappear so that all you can see is that nice streak of their headlights and rear lights.
Understanding Shutter Speed Basics
To adjust the shutter speed on your camera, there will be a dial you can rotate. When you increase the shutter speed, you will notice the F number decreasing. This is because as you increase the shutter speed, less light enters the camera, so the camera picks up a smaller F number, so the aperture opens up to allow more light to come inside the lens. Experiment with taking some photos at various shutter speeds. If you set the shutter speed as one or two seconds, you will clearly hear the shutter before closing one or two seconds later.
With longer shutter speeds, it works best if you put your camera on a timer, so that your pressing of the button to take the photo won't make the camera shake in any way, even when you are using a tripod. Another tip is to slowly roll your finger off the button when you take the image with the timer, so the camera isn't subjected to any small sudden movements.
If you want a clear picture of any moving object, such as water or children (who tend to move around suddenly), you would be wise to use a quick shutter speed. 1/500 of a second is a good example of a decent shutter speed, but you sometimes don't need to use such a high speed.
For night time long exposure, we will examine this in another post.
I hope you found this article on shutter speed basics to be informative and that it helped you to gain a deeper understanding of the fundamentals of the topic.
Shutter speed is just the speed at which your camera takes an image. Inside your camera, there is a shutter. Every time you take a shot, the shutter opens and then closes. Upon opening, light shines onto the sensor, the sensor captures the image, then the shutter closes. Faster shutter speeds will basically freeze the movement. Longer shutter speeds come in handy when there is a limited amount of light. If the shutter opens and closes rapidly, a very small amount of light will be able to enter the camera. Your pictures could turn out under exposed depending on how much light you are working with. You won't have this problem on a bright and sunny day for example if your shutter speed is something like 1/1000 of a second or 2/1000 of a second. This issue more commonly occurs indoors.
Imagine you are taking a shot of a sunset. If you select a very quick shutter speed, your image will be dark. In this kind of circumstance you would slow down the shutter speed. It might be a few seconds long. This depends on the lighting and also on the aperture value you have picked. By doing this, you will no longer have the problem of your photos being under exposed and too dark, but this leads to another problem; you will need to use a tripod to keep the camera still. If you hand shakes even a tiny amount while you are taking the photo, or the subject moves, your picture will be blurry. Alternatively you can place the camera somewhere where it will be completely still.
When you have an abundance of light, is it still possible to produce any nice effects by slowing the shutter speed down?
Of course this is possible! An example is when you take a picture of moving water, such as a river or a waterfall. This will create a silky, dreamy effect on the photo of the water. You would have to change your aperture to compensate for the abundance of light hitting the sensor. Some effects require us to change the aperture so much that the shutter speed can be as slow as several minutes! This may be an aperture number of about F18 or F22. This means that the aperture size will shrink so that there is less light coming in. It could still be over exposed and you might need to use a filter to block out some of the sunlight.
This technique can also be used if you are standing on a bridge in the city to take shots of roads with vehicles on, to make the vehicles disappear so that all you can see is that nice streak of their headlights and rear lights.
Understanding Shutter Speed Basics
To adjust the shutter speed on your camera, there will be a dial you can rotate. When you increase the shutter speed, you will notice the F number decreasing. This is because as you increase the shutter speed, less light enters the camera, so the camera picks up a smaller F number, so the aperture opens up to allow more light to come inside the lens. Experiment with taking some photos at various shutter speeds. If you set the shutter speed as one or two seconds, you will clearly hear the shutter before closing one or two seconds later.
With longer shutter speeds, it works best if you put your camera on a timer, so that your pressing of the button to take the photo won't make the camera shake in any way, even when you are using a tripod. Another tip is to slowly roll your finger off the button when you take the image with the timer, so the camera isn't subjected to any small sudden movements.
If you want a clear picture of any moving object, such as water or children (who tend to move around suddenly), you would be wise to use a quick shutter speed. 1/500 of a second is a good example of a decent shutter speed, but you sometimes don't need to use such a high speed.
For night time long exposure, we will examine this in another post.
I hope you found this article on shutter speed basics to be informative and that it helped you to gain a deeper understanding of the fundamentals of the topic.
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Now that you've gained a good level of understanding about the basics of shutter speed you may want to have a look at some other great articles to help you along your way as a budding photographer